


I am Alone with the Things I Have Done

by nickelsandcoats



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelsandcoats/pseuds/nickelsandcoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6375.html?thread=27930599#t27930599">this prompt</a> at <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/"><b>sherlockbbc_fic</b></a>. Deviates from the prompt slightly.</p><p>The title comes from A Softer World.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6375.html?thread=27930599#t27930599) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/). Deviates from the prompt slightly.
> 
> The title comes from A Softer World.

“John?”

“Yes?”

“Can you get the green box from the top of the bookshelf in my old room?”

John stood up from his armchair and walked through the kitchen to Sherlock’s old room, brushing an affectionate hand across his lover’s shoulders as he walked by.

Sherlock had moved up to John’s room (“You have the bigger bed,” Sherlock argued. “But you have the bigger room,” John countered. “Which is why it will make a far better storage room,” Sherlock had said, and that was that) when they became lovers eight months ago. They fell into bed together when they came home from the hospital after Sherlock blew up the pool and Moriarty died. John had only gone into Sherlock’s room a handful of times since he moved into Baker St., and he still felt like he was invading Sherlock’s privacy each time he set foot over the threshold.

He opened the bedroom door and flicked on the light, weaving his way through the piles of papers and books stacked on the floor as he made it to the bookshelf. He had to stand on his toes to pull the green box from the top of the bookshelf, and as he pulled, a picture frame fell off the top of the box and dropped to the floor. The glass shattered.

“Shit!”

Tucking the box under his arm, John crouched down and gathered up the shards of glass and deposited them in a nearby bin before returning to pick up the broken frame. He turned it over and gasped softly at the picture.

It was obviously a wedding photo; the young bride clutched her bouquet of white and blue hydrangeas as she smiled warmly at the cameraman. Her smile made the corners of her startlingly blue eyes crinkle, and John found himself smiling back at her. Her ginger hair was carefully swept up and away from her face, but two small tendrils fell down to frame her face and set off her pale skin. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose. The white of her dress offset her hair and skin beautifully. She looked radiant and joyous, eyes shining with love. John gently brushed a finger across her cheek in apology for breaking the frame before he stood and went back to the kitchen.

He set the box next to Sherlock, who gave him a grunt of thanks. John took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry, but this picture fell off the box when I pulled it down and the frame broke. I’ll get a new one tomorrow.”

Sherlock glanced over at the frame. John obligingly tilted it so he could see. Sherlock went completely still when he saw which picture it was.

“Sherlock? You all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” John’s free hand came up to grip Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Fine, I’m fine,” Sherlock managed to croak out. “Just leave it here, would you?”

“Of course.” John shot Sherlock a look that clearly said that he didn’t believe the claim to be “fine,” but he set the picture down and busied himself with making tea and reheating the leftover takeaway. They ate in silence. John’s eyes kept flicking to the picture that stared at him from where it laid next to Sherlock’s elbow. Sherlock, on the other hand, was deliberately ignoring the picture, but his tension was obvious in the set of his shoulders. Sherlock, unable to stand it any longer, dropped his fork with a clatter and snapped, “Go ahead, ask.”

John blinked at him, clearly startled by the vehemence in his partner’s voice. “Who is she? I figured it had to be evidence from a case if you had kept it.”

Sherlock’s grin was bitter. “Her name is Catherine.”

“Catherine who?”

“Catherine Eileen Scott.” Sherlock paused and took a shaky breath. “Later, she was Catherine Eileen Holmes.”

John blinked. “So she was…your sister-in-law? Cousin?” Sherlock had never mentioned being with anyone else, so he assumed that she had to be Mycroft’s wife or a cousin.

“No,” Sherlock said bitterly. “No, she was my wife.”

John gaped at him. “Your wife?” Then the use of the past tense verbs hit him. “What happened?”

Sherlock looked away, blinking back unexpected tears. “She died.”

Before John could say anything else or stand to comfort his partner, Sherlock pushed back from the kitchen table so violently that his chair tipped over. He stalked off to his old room and shut the door with a firm click.

*

Sherlock didn’t emerge from his old room that night, no matter how much John pleaded with him to come out. John spent the night searching for Catherine Holmes on the internet, trying to piece together whatever information he could find about Sherlock’s late wife. She and Sherlock graduated with their B.Sc.s in Chemistry from Cambridge the same year. He wondered if they had met at Cambridge in their undergraduate years. He found their marriage certificate: they had married young—both of them just 20. He found, after some more digging, her death certificate. She had died at 23 of blunt force trauma sustained in a car accident. John’s heart broke for his partner. There was no obituary, no news articles about the accident, nothing. John suspected that Mycroft had had them removed, but he had no proof of that.

John finally closed his laptop at one in the morning and went upstairs to bed alone.

*

The next morning, John came downstairs to see Sherlock sitting on the sofa with a box on the floor at his feet.

He looked up at John with red-rimmed eyes. John was across the room in a flash, pulling his partner into a crushing hug. “I’m so sorry, Sherlock. I can’t even imagine how to begin to tell you how sorry I am.” He kissed Sherlock’s forehead and just held him for a long moment as Sherlock pressed his damp face into John’s neck. Finally, Sherlock pulled back and gave John a soft smile.

“I’d like to tell you about her, if that’s okay.”

John shifted so he was sitting more comfortably on the sofa and nodded.

Sherlock reached down into the box and pulled out a small stack of photos.

“We met at Cambridge. She was reading Chemistry like I was. We both spent most of our time in the library or in the labs. She kept catching my eye in the library, and finally marched up to me near the end of our first semester and asked me out for a drink. I was shocked enough to say yes—she was quite forceful when she wanted to be.” He smiled fondly, handing over the stack of pictures. “These are all pictures from our time at Cambridge.”

John flipped through them, smiling at the candid photos of a much younger Sherlock and Catherine with their arms slung around each other, of them kissing in a park, of Catherine smiling in a pub, of Sherlock in lab goggles and white lab coat, concentrating fiercely on a beaker in front of him.

“We started dating. She was extraordinary. I had never been close to anyone growing up, never had friends. But she became a friend, and then she became more.” Sherlock smiled. “I was absolutely besotted; Mummy and Mycroft were shocked that I found someone. Anyway, at the end of our first year at Cambridge, we decided to move in together, so we rented a little flat near the college and split our time between the flat and the labs. She kept me focused and grounded—I don’t know if I would have had the discipline to stick out the rest of my degree without her. I could’ve written my Master’s thesis in my first semester as an undergraduate, but she kept at me, telling me that I had to graduate even if it was only to spite Mycroft.

I proposed to her halfway through our second year. We got married six months later—we were both only twenty.” Sherlock smiled at a distant memory before he collected himself and continued. “She wanted to teach, and I had no patience to sit through a Master’s program, so when we graduated, she kept going through school at University College London and I got a job at Bart’s.”

John looked confused for a moment, and then his face cleared. “So that’s why you can use the labs and such. I always wondered how you got access to them.”

“I quit working there after she died, but they let me use them still as a courtesy. I have a feeling Mycroft had something to do with it.”

Sherlock handed over another set of photos.

“You would have loved Catherine, John. She reminds me a bit of you—quiet, honest, loyal, hardworking. She made me slow down and appreciate life. When I was with her, the world seemed less loud, my life less dull."

John was looking through the photos Sherlock had just handed him. They were of their wedding day; Sherlock solemn and handsome in his grey suit, Catherine radiant in her white gown. There were several formal shots of the happy couple. Sherlock’s eyes were locked on Catherine’s in every photo, and John felt his heart ache at the love he saw in their eyes, in the way they kissed and held each other. It was clear from these pictures that there was no one else in the world for these two but each other.

“We were so happy, John. Everything was perfect. We had our flat, I had a good job, she was working on her Master’s. I had started my consulting business soon after we got engaged, and Lestrade was finally starting to take me seriously by the time we got married. He would call me in on occasion at first, and then more and more often. I finally dropped down to part time at Bart’s so that I could devote more time to consulting. We had a blissful three years—I never thought that I could be so happy. And I was happy, John, as happy as I am now, with you.”

John reached down and clasped Sherlock’s hands, weaving their fingers together.

Sherlock seemed to be stuck. His throat worked as he finally said, “And then I lost her, and my world ended. I quit at Bart’s, I started using cocaine, Lestrade and the Yard nearly stopped contacting me. It took me almost a year to acknowledge that I had a problem, and even then, it took an nearly fatal overdose to wake me up. Mycroft sent me to rehab as soon as I was discharged from the hospital. He kept saying to me over and over when I was using, ‘What would Catherine say?’ and I hated him for trying to use her memory against me.

“I still visit her grave every week. I blamed myself for her death—I held myself responsible. If only I had been there—” he cut himself off and looked out the window, avoiding John’s sympathetic look. “I used to tell myself that I didn’t deserve to be happy, I couldn’t even conceive of being happy again. I thought that I would never move on, especially after what happened to her. I spent years believing that, until I met you. I was scared to admit that I cared about you, even to myself.”

John’s heart broke thinking of the years Sherlock had spent loathing himself, punishing himself for something that he could not have prevented. “What changed your mind?”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock said gruffly. “He and I talked a few weeks after our first case.” Sherlock wouldn’t say anything else about that conversation, and John let it drop.

John let the silence stand for a moment before he cleared his throat. “I’d like to meet her, if that’s okay.”

A flash of surprise crossed Sherlock’s face before he gave John a soft smile. “I’d like that.” He let John pull him into a hug. The two of them held each other for a long time, the only sound the ticking of the clock on the mantle.

After half an hour, John stirred and pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s temple. “Thank you for telling me about Catherine. I wish I could’ve known her.”

Sherlock smiled. “You two would’ve gotten on quite well. She would’ve liked you.”

John steeled himself and asked the question that had been at the forefront of his mind since the previous night: Why had Mycroft had everything about her accident removed? “What happened, Sherlock?”

Sherlock gave a deep, shuddering sigh and stood abruptly. “I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t talk about it. John, I—” He paced, agitated. “I need some air.” And with that, he pulled on his coat and scarf and was gone before John could stop him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6375.html?thread=27930599#t27930599) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/). Deviates from the prompt slightly.
> 
> The title comes from A Softer World.
> 
> The line of poetry on Catherine's headstone is from e.e. cummings' "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond"

  
John stared after Sherlock, instantly feeling guilty. He knew that he shouldn’t have asked Sherlock what happened, but it had seemed like Sherlock was in one of his rare sharing moods, so he had grabbed at the opportunity to have his curiosity satisfied. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see a text from Mycroft:

 _Car will be at your residence in five minutes. Do be outside, Doctor Watson.  
MH_

John swallowed and pulled on his coat. By the time he made it downstairs, the black sedan pulled up in front of their flat. The driver got out and opened the door for John. He slid in and was surprised to see Mycroft sitting across from him.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Watson.”

“Afternoon.”

Mycroft had a file sitting on his lap. John glanced at it, assuming that it contained information about Catherine, but refused to rise to Mycroft’s bait. The car pulled smoothly away from the kerb and Mycroft still made no move to open the file, or hand it over. Silence reigned in the car for the better part of five minutes before Mycroft finally spoke.

“Sherlock and Catherine were very close. You can imagine my surprise, and Mummy’s, when we found out that he had made a close friend, especially a female one. Sherlock as a child had been friendless—he was cutting and cruel to the boys and indifferent to the girls. We all thought that his anti-social personality would persist in keeping him alone in university, something that we didn’t want to happen, but we assumed it would. So when Sherlock rang Mummy at the end of his first semester and all he could talk about was Catherine, she was pleasantly surprised, but rang me later to divulge her worry that Catherine had somehow discovered what I did and was trying to spy on me through Sherlock, or that she was using him for something, perhaps blackmail or to gain social standing—the one who got the sociopath to love—among her friends. I, of course, set out to learn all I could about her. There was nothing there—she was above all suspicion. She was a genuinely warm person; she loved Sherlock with everything she had.

“We met her once before Sherlock proposed. They came up at the Easter holiday and stayed at the house for a few days. Catherine was everything we ever could have hoped for for Sherlock. He loved her deeply—it showed in his eyes, in his body language. She had changed him for the better—he was warm, open, less irascible. Before they left for Cambridge again, Sherlock pulled us aside and told us he was going to ask her to marry him. That was the first time I ever saw Mummy cry with joy.

“I wish you could have known my brother in those days, Doctor Watson. He was a different person, then. More kind, more open. At times, it seemed he even wore his heart on his sleeve. It pains me every day to see him as he is now. The guilt he still carries over her death has broken him down, and no matter how much I try to convince him that there was nothing he could have done to stop it happening, he still carries a small part of that guilt lodged deep in his psyche.”

Here, Mycroft paused and gave John an assessing look.

“I am grateful, Doctor Watson, for the part you have played in bringing back some of that gentler, kinder side of my brother I saw when Catherine was still alive. I see much of her in you, as I’m sure he has told you. I have not seen him this happy in over ten years, and I cannot thank you enough for that.”

John shifted in his seat, looking slightly embarrassed.

Mycroft gave him an inscrutable smile and tapped one long finger against the file in his lap. “This folder, as I assume you have guessed, contains the information you were looking for online last night.”

“How did you—no, no I’m not even going to ask how you knew what I was looking up last night. I don’t want to know the level of surveillance you’ve got on us.”

Mycroft’s smile became more genuine for a moment. “However, I am not going to give you this information just yet. I have a feeling that you can manage to get Sherlock to tell you himself, eventually. The healing power of discussing your feelings is one you are at least moderately familiar with from your own sessions.”

John looked out the window in an attempt to avoid Mycroft’s all-knowing, smug look. They were nearly back to Baker St., he realised with a start.

“Sherlock will likely return in a few hours. When he does, you must bear with him as he is likely to have fallen into one of his blacker moods.”

“Where is he?” John asked as the car pulled to a stop outside their flat.

“With Catherine.”

John swallowed, unsure if he should tell Mycroft this or not. _In for a penny, in for a pound, Watson,_ he thought as he squared his shoulders. “I asked to meet her.”

That did surprise Mycroft. “Really? And what did he say?”

“That he’d like that.”

Mycroft’s face softened. “Good.” He looked pointedly at the flat door. “Good afternoon, Doctor Watson. Do remember to try to get him to talk about what happened to her—it will only help him in the long run, no matter how painful it might seem to him. And you only want to help him, isn’t that right?”

John frowned at Mycroft, but opened the door and stepped out, his only word a curt “Afternoon,” as he shut the car door with more force than strictly necessary.

*

Sherlock nearly ran out of their flat and was halfway down the street before he realized he’d left his mobile and his keys behind. _Oh, well done,_ he thought viciously. _John’s already worried about me, and now he has no way of contacting me, which will only make him worry more. Go back and get it? No, would only have to confront him and my panic. Can’t tell him what happened, why it’s all my fault that she’s gone. I killed her and I’ll never be free of that guilt, never ever and he won’t understand why it’s my fault and he’ll look at me with pity and I don’t deserve that pity I don’t I don’t I don’t_

 _I don’t deserve him. He’s a good man and he’s saddled with me I should just leave before I kill him too before I bring him down with my own guilt and my dangerous life and I don’t know why he loves me I’m a broken man and I can’t be fixed I don't deserve to be fixed or happy or anything else_

Sherlock abruptly realized that his cheeks were wet with tears he hadn’t noticed weeping while his internal diatribe raged in his head. He looked up, startled to see that he had also kept walking at a near breakneck speed as he had been thinking, and that his feet had carried him to within a few blocks of the cemetery where Catherine was buried. He took a deep breath and kept walking, slower now, towards the cemetery.

He followed the twists and turns of the cemetery paths automatically, his feet knowing where to go even as his brain whirled with self-recrimations. Finally, he stopped in front of a modest headstone and sank down to sit on the grass a mere foot from it.

He reached out and traced the familiar letters of the engraving and smiled a bit as he said, “Hello, love.”

Sherlock’s eyes traced the letters on her headstone over and over as he gathered his thoughts. He had chosen a simple grey stone for her, and inscribed it with a line from her favorite poem, one which he had always privately thought encapsulated his feelings about her power over him. He reached out and brushed away a speck of dirt from the inscription.

 _Catherine Eileen Holmes_

 _nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals  
the power of your intense fragility_

 _23 September 1976—05 December 1999_

“I told John about you. He wants to meet you. I agreed, and I think you would like to meet him, too. I’ve already told you how similar the two of you are, how the depth of my feelings run for both of you. I know I told you a long time ago that I never thought I would love again, and I know I’ve told you more recently that I hoped you would be happy that I finally had let myself love again. I think you would have wanted me to, that you wouldn’t want me to be the lonely bastard you first met in that library.

“But I haven’t told him what happened to you, what I did to you. And I don’t know if I can. I’m not as brave as you were, as he is. I don’t think I could bear his pity—I don’t deserve it. Not with what I did.”

He sat in silence for hours, staring blankly at her headstone lost in his thoughts and memories of their life, of those last moments with her, of the decisions that led them to that awful moment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6375.html?thread=27930599#t27930599) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/). Deviates from the prompt slightly.

  
Sherlock slowly became aware that his arse and legs had gone numb from sitting on the ground for so long. He blinked and let his surroundings fade back into focus. He cast a smile at Catherine’s headstone. “I’ve made my decision, love. I need to tell him. I’ve told no one else but Mycroft what happened—even Mummy only knows a portion of the truth. If it was you, you’d want to know the whole truth, and he is so much like you that it truly frightens me. I think that he would forgive me anything, just as you would.”

He unfolded himself from his seated position and leaned forward to brush a gentle kiss to the top of her headstone. “I’ll see you soon. Perhaps I’ll bring John along next time. If he can stand to be around me after he learns what happened. I love you.”

He brushed off his coat and left, walking back home in an effort to finalize his thoughts and delay the inevitable.

When he walked back into the flat, John was curled at one end of the sofa, head propped on his hand, snoring. Sherlock’s mouth twisted in a fond smile as he quietly hung up his coat and settled himself next to John on the sofa. He put his head in the crook of the doctor’s shoulder, which startled John awake.

“Mmph!”

“Sorry. I just got in.”

John yawned and curled his arm around Sherlock’s waist, drawing him closer. “You’re bloody cold,” John complained but he kept pulling Sherlock in closer until the man was pressed tightly into John’s side. Sherlock nuzzled into his neck and enjoyed the last moment of peace allotted to him before he finally gathered his courage and said, “I want to tell you what happened to Catherine.”

John was quiet for a moment. “All right.” He started to turn to face Sherlock, but Sherlock held him firmly in place.

“It’ll be easier if I don’t look at you.”

He knew John would be frowning, and felt the sharp intake of breath that would preclude John’s protest, but he cut the doctor off with a quiet “Please.”

John settled in and waited. His thumb brushed over Sherlock’s hip in a soothing rhythm.

The silence was nearly unbearable before Sherlock finally cleared his throat and began, “Even though Mummy lived close to Cambridge, we had gone up to her house for the weekend to help her get the house decorated for Christmas…”

***

 _4 December 1999_

“Sherlock!” Catherine giggled, “stop! Stoppit!” Sherlock grinned unrepentantly as he kept tickling her sides, making her nearly drop the garland she was trying to put on the mantelpiece. His fingers were merciless as they danced along her ribs, across her swollen belly. “I mean it!” she managed to gasp out between giggles. “Or else I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll what?”

“Make you eat gherkin and kipper sandwiches with me for breakfast.” She dissolved into helpless laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Eurgh!” Sherlock’s fingers stopped and he gently turned her in his arms to embrace her, careful not to press too hard against the swell of her abdomen. She was five and a half months along, and it was starting to get harder to hug her properly, as she called it. She leaned forward and kissed him soundly, eyes twinkling as she pulled away.

“I love you,” she murmured as his mother walked back into the room with a box of candles.

“You too,” he said and turned to help his mother unpack the candles.

Later that night, they went to bed. Sherlock slowly undressed her and made love to her reverently. After, he curled around her protectively, one hand resting over the swell of her stomach, cradling his wife and unborn daughter as they slept.

*

 _5 December 1999_

Sherlock woke to Catherine kissing his neck. He hmmmed appreciatively and rolled his head to one side to allow her better access. She ran one small hand down his chest to first rub, and then roll his nipple in her fingers. He groaned and bent to kiss her, rolling her onto her back and pressing kisses down her neck and onto her chest. He licked at her right nipple, sucking it gently as his right hand came up to play with her other nipple. She moaned loudly and he grinned. She laughed and rolled back onto her side, snaking her hand down to cup his balls, pressing them gently against the underside of his cock. He gasped softly and kissed her, pouring all of his focus into exploring her mouth with his tongue, nipping at her bottom lip, licking along her full lower lip. Catherine met him kiss for kiss until the need for oxygen forced them apart, panting. He reached down and slid his fingers through her wetness, finding her clit and rubbing it in slow circles. She mewed and shook with pleasure before she finally rolled him onto his back and rubbed herself in one long sinuous wave against his cock before straddling his hips and sinking onto him. She let out a moan as he filled her, and his fingers came up and grasped her hips tightly enough to leave a bruise.

“Wait, just give me a minute,” he breathed as she slowly slid up and down his length. She settled back down on his hips and leaned down as far as she could, asking silently for a kiss. Sherlock drew his legs up until his feet were flat on the mattress and leaned up to meet her, letting her nip at his bottom lip as he brought his legs up to support her back. He gently lifted her up and let gravity push her back down onto him. She flexed her thighs, repeating the movement, making them both groan in appreciation. Sherlock slipped his hand between them and rubbed her clit in ever-tightening circles until she tensed and cried out against him. The ripple of her muscles pulled his own orgasm from him, and he spilled into her with a moan.

She gently pulled off of him and laid back on her side, pillowing her head on his chest. He stroked her hair as she dozed.

An hour later, Sherlock gently disengaged himself from Catherine’s embrace and headed for the shower. When he came back out, roughly scrubbing his wet hair with a towel, Catherine had woken and was watching him from the bed.

“Good morning,” she said as she sat up and carefully swung her legs out of the bed. She stood and took the towel from him, gently rubbing it over his head as he leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose.

“Good morning. Shall I get the gherkins and kippers ready?”

Catherine smacked his arm playfully. “No, I’ve decided that you’ve made up for your heinous act of tickling,” she said as she moved past him into the bathroom. “Mind you, I could murder a gherkin right now.”

Sherlock made a face and she laughed. “I’ll be down in a bit.” Catherine started the shower as Sherlock dressed and went down to help Mummy with breakfast.

Two hours later, Catherine found Sherlock in the study, where he was reading a book.

“I need to go back to UCL today,” she said, fidgeting with her mobile.

Sherlock looked out the window. It had been snowing all morning, and he knew that the roads would be slippery; he was not looking forward to the drive back. He had never bothered to get his driving licence, so Catherine had driven them up to the house. “Why?” he asked. “I thought we were going to stay here until Tuesday.”

“Patrick just rang and said that they need someone to supervise the undergraduate lab exams tomorrow. Susan’s poorly and can’t do it.”

“Isn’t there anyone else who can do it? I’m not comfortable driving in this weather.”

“No, Patrick said that everyone else is already booked into labs. I was the only one who didn’t have one on Monday since we were going to be here. I’ll just pop down today and come back after labs tomorrow to get you, unless your Mum or Mycroft is going to bring you.”

“And I’m not comfortable with you driving in this weather, either. Can we just leave early tomorrow? What time are you proctoring?”

“The exam’s at 8 AM. I need to go today so I can get the lab set up for the exam.”

Sherlock sighed. “All right. But be careful. Do you need help packing?”

“Already done.”

“When do you need to leave?”

“Not for a few more minutes.” A flash of panic, and then confusion and then wonder shot across her face as she suddenly pressed one hand over her stomach.

Sherlock was on his feet and in front of her in an instant. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Catherine looked up at him, glowing. “She just kicked! I felt it, right here.” She took his hand and placed it over her stomach. They waited, holding their breaths, and then the baby kicked again. Sherlock’s face nearly split in two as he grinned down at Catherine and leaned in to kiss her deeply.

“Can you at least wait until the snow stops? It should stop in another hour or so.”

“An hour? Whatever shall we do with that time?” She grinned at him, eyes crinkling at the corners.

He kissed the corner of her eyes, right over the wrinkles and drew her back down to the sofa. “We’ll spend it snogging and waiting for our daughter to kick again.”

An hour later, he kissed Catherine goodbye and refused to shut the door until he could no longer see their car in the distance.

***

“And that was the last time I saw her alive,” Sherlock said. John’s thumb had never stopped its rhythmic stroke up and down his hip.

John pressed his lips to the crown of Sherlock’s hair and kept them there. Finally, he sat back and said, “I know it’s not enough to say it, but I’m so sorry, Sherlock. I can’t even begin to imagine losing a wife, let alone a child.”

Sherlock turned in his embrace and kissed John softly. “Thank you.”

They sat in silence for a while.

Then, Sherlock looked down at his lap.

“There’s more I need to tell you, but I need a break, if that’s all right. This next part is hard to even think about, let alone talk about.”

“Of course we can take a break,” John said instantly. “Are you hungry?” He winced at his question, _Be more sensitive, for God’s sake! You’re a doctor!_ but Sherlock nodded.

“Curry?” Sherlock asked.

Forty-five minutes later, they were sitting at the mostly clean kitchen table with takeaway curries. Each of them had a beer; Sherlock suspected he might need another one to give him the courage to tell John about what had happened to Catherine in her last hours.

Despite what her official death certificate said, she didn’t die in a car accident.

Catherine Holmes was murdered as an act of revenge against Sherlock.


	4. Chapter 4

After dinner, Sherlock gently pushed John back onto the sofa, pushing him into the same position he’d been in before dinner. This time, though, John’s arm was around Sherlock’s shoulder and his fingers gently rubbed small circles on Sherlock’s bicep. Sherlock’s own hands were twisted together in his lap.

“Before I go on, I have to tell you about a case,” Sherlock said, looking down at his hands. “It was one of my first really big cases, one that finally made the Yard give me a bit more than just grudging respect.

“I was only twenty-one when I caught John Nesbitt. He had murdered his pregnant wife because he stood to get a great deal of money from her life insurance, and what tipped him over the edge was his erroneous belief that she had cheated on him. He staged a robbery and tried to blame her death on the burglar, but I figured it out in the end and he got sent down for murder. Nesbitt’s trial went on for over a year, and he was finally convicted a few days after our wedding anniversary. He ended up with a life sentence.

“What I didn’t know was how he would seek his revenge.”

 

***

 

 _5 December 1999_

“Sherlock?”

“Yes, Mummy?”

“Have you heard from Catherine yet? Surely she would have called you by now.”

Sherlock looked at his watch. Catherine left three hours ago. It would’ve taken longer to drive back due to the slick roads, and knowing her, she would have gone straight to the lab to set up for the exam before going home. “She should ring soon. If I haven’t heard from her in an hour or so, I’ll give her a ring.”

Twenty minutes later, Catherine rang, sounding a bit breathless. “Sorry, love, that I didn’t ring earlier. I went straight to the lab and it took a bit longer than I thought to get the lab ready. But I’m home now. I might run out to Tesco’s later so we don’t have to do it tomorrow.”

“All right, love. I’ll get Mycroft to drop me off tomorrow so you don’t have to drive all the way back here. I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”

“I love you.”

Sherlock rang off and went to have dinner with Mycroft and his father, who had just arrived an hour ago.

*

 _6 December 1999_

Sherlock fidgeted in the front seat of Mycroft’s car as his brother drove back to his and Catherine’s flat in London. Catherine hadn’t rung that morning after the exam, and he was growing slightly worried. But no one else from Catherine’s group of friends (Sherlock’s only friend was Catherine—after graduating from university he shunned all contact with people except his family and her) had rung asking where she was or if he had heard from her, so he pushed the worry to the back of his mind and let himself ponder the state of Mycroft’s diet (not going well), his last case from the Yard (forgery, dull), Catherine’s upcoming ultrasound (in a few weeks; he was excited to see the changes in their daughter so he could catalogue them), and finally, the feeling of their daughter kicking (indescribable—there were literally no words for the feeling it engendered in him).

When they pulled up to the flat, Sherlock saw their car parked on the street. He smiled knowingly. She must’ve fallen asleep as soon as she got home, he thought as he absently glowered at Mycroft’s pointed “you’re welcome, Sherlock,” as he got out of the car, retrieved his suitcase from the boot, and pushed the key into their door’s lock.

He dropped the suitcase at the top of the stairs as his mobile rang. He flipped it open. Lestrade. His heart sped up at the thought of a case. A case!

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“Listen, we need you to come down to 10 Clarendon Rd. But, listen, Sherlock, you need to know—”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Sherlock hung up the phone before Lestrade could get out another word and went back down the stairs to hail a cab.

Ten minutes later, he got out of the cab and strode up to Lestrade, who had just been promoted to DI a few months ago. The DI started talking, but Sherlock tuned him out, eager to get to the crime scene. He strode forward and got a quick glimpse of the body. Female, ginger, early- to mid-twenties, student, face down on the pavement in an alley. That was all he got before Lestrade actually stepped in front of him, blocking his view.

Sherlock frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

Lestrade gaped at him for a moment before his expression softened into one of grief and sympathy. Sherlock’s heart started thudding dully in his chest. “Oh, Christ, no one’s told you yet? Jesus.” The DI scrubbed his hand down his face before looking back up at Sherlock. “Sherlock, I—shit.” He broke off and swallowed. “It’s Catherine, Sherlock. We just got the ID confirmed just before I rang you. Her wallet is gone, but there was a receipt with her name on it in her purse. Forensics estimates that she’s been dead since last night—the shop owner next door found her this morning when he emptied the rubbish bins. Sherlock, I’m so sorry. Let me call you a cab and get you hom—“

But Sherlock pushed him aside and ran to his wife’s side, kneeling down and gently turning her over. Two deep stab wounds, one to her abdomen and one to her chest, had caused her to bleed to death. Her eyes were closed.

He gently laid her back down and then stood and stumbled a few steps away and threw up. The hot burn of bile tore at his throat as he heaved again and again, tears and mucus mixing with the thick strings of saliva running from his mouth. “Nonononononono. Not her, not my Catherine. Oh God, what I am going to do? Oh god oh god no no no no no no not FAIR this is not fair why her why her I was finally happy she doesn’t deserve this oh god my love my wife my child why why why why WHY?”

Lestrade’s hand gripped his shoulder as he handed Sherlock a clean tissue to wipe his mouth with. “Sherlock,” he said gently, so gently. “Sherlock, let me take you home. Who can I call?”

“No,” Sherlock straightened himself up and forced himself to turn and look at Catherine’s body, lying so still and cold on the pavement. “I have to figure out who did this to her.”

Lestrade looked at him doubtfully. “Sherlock, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do this.”

Gulping down air past a too-tight throat, he crouched down again next to her body. “There are two deep, mortal knife wounds, one to the chest and one to the abdomen. The killer is right-handed, male, just under 6 feet tall. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the alley—you can see the bruises on her right wrist. He stabbed her twice, took her wallet to prevent easy identification, and left. This was carefully planned out—there are no CCTV cameras here, and little foot or motor traffic at night. He must have trailed her for weeks to learn her patterns of behavior and waited for the right moment to strike. This was a revenge killing—robbery wasn’t his motive. Her jewelry is still here, and so is the cash she always carries, carried, in her back pocket. No signs of rape or sexual assault.” _Thank God, he thought_

“Did she have any enemies? Anyone who wanted to do her harm?”

“No. But there are plenty of people who would want harm to come to me. What’s the best way to destroy a man? Hurt his wife or child. I need information on the people who have been locked up for serious crimes due to the evidence I found. Look for people who murdered someone, or who are facing long jail terms. This has to be a family affair—the killer is likely the brother or male cousin of that jailed person. It would be hard for someone in jail to get access to the kind of money needed to hire a hitman.”

“Of course,” Lestrade said, nodding to a DS Sherlock didn’t know. “I think you need to go home, Sherlock. I’ll ring when we have that information for you.”

Sherlock allowed himself to be led to a waiting police car and driven home. He moved mechanically up the stairs and threw himself on their bed and allowed himself to fall apart.

*

Five hours later, Sherlock sat up and made his way into their bathroom, where he splashed water on his face. As he looked up and saw his grey face in the mirror, everything fell into place.

John Nesbitt.

Sherlock had found the evidence that proved his pregnant wife’s death was not caused by a robber breaking in while Nesbitt was away and suffocating his wife, as Nesbitt had claimed, but was instead caused by Nesbitt himself suffocating her in her sleep and staging a robbery. Nesbitt had thought his wife had cheated on him (she hadn’t) and that the baby wasn’t his (it was). It took hours of questioning and Sherlock deducing every last one of Nesbitt’s failings before the man finally cracked and confessed. His motive wasn’t just jealousy—it was money. He stood to get a hefty life insurance payout His trial, Sherlock remembered, had ended a month ago, and Nesbitt had been given a life sentence.

He rang Lestrade. “Look at John Nesbitt. He has a brother. Find him.”

Two days later, Travis Nesbitt was arrested, questioned, and confessed to the murder of Catherine Holmes. His brother had put him up to it, he said in his confession. Travis was only too glad to help extract revenge for his brother’s imprisonment.

Three days later, the day of Catherine’s funeral, a note addressed to Sherlock was delivered to Scotland Yard.

It was from John Nesbitt.

 _Now you know how it feels to lose everything you care about. You took my life from me, so I took yours from you. How does it feel, Mr. Holmes?_

 _JN_

Sherlock wrinkled up the note and handed it to Lestrade. “Burn it.”

He left the Yard and wandered about London in a grey fog. Nothing had seemed clear to him since Catherine died. The world was dull, colourless. There was no joy left. He was brought up short in his wandering when he saw someone buy cocaine off a dealer. He strode up to the dealer and handed him twenty pounds in exchange for a small baggie of white powder.

He went home and shot up for the first time. The world exploded into colour again, and he could almost dull the ache in his chest. When he came down from his high, all he wanted was to feel that brief euphoria again. It was easier to pretend that he wasn’t a widower when the drug opened his mind like nothing else ever had.

 

***

“And that was how my cocaine addiction started. A few weeks later, I quit at Bart’s, I stopped answering calls from Lestrade, and when I did answer them, I showed up to crime scenes high. Lestrade pulled me off cases, stopped calling me. Mycroft showed up and shoved me into rehab. And here I am.”

John was silent, taking all of this in. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? This had to have been weighing on you. And after what you’ve been through, I’m surprised you let yourself open up to anyone, love anyone, again.”

“It was my fault that she died. If I had gone home with her that night, if I hadn’t cracked the Nesbitt case, she would still be alive. Don’t you see, John? It was me. All my fault. I’ve carried that guilt with me ever since. It’s gotten easier, over time, but it’s only been the last two years or so that I allowed myself to finally start to believe that there was nothing I could’ve done. I couldn’t have known that Nesbitt was so angry. I couldn’t have known that she would have been murdered. But I was afraid to tell anyone that I was a widower because I thought I didn’t deserve their pity. I didn’t deserve to love anyone else because I had killed my wife through my actions at my hobby.”

“Sherlock, it’s not your fault. You deserve to love—you’re not a bad person.”

Sherlock gave him a wan smile. “I know that now, and most of the time, I believe it, too. But to answer your other question, I allowed myself to love again because I met you. You remind me so much of everything I loved in Catherine. At times, I almost wonder if there is someone guiding everything, someone who brought you to me.”

John pulled his lover in close and kissed him gently. “Let’s go to bed.”

Sherlock hummed in agreement.

“And…I’d like to meet her tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

*

The next morning, Sherlock handed John his coat after breakfast and led him out the door. They walked in companionable silence, shoulders brushing as they walked.

Sherlock didn’t speak until they were standing in front of Catherine’s grave.

“Hello, love. I wanted you to meet John.” He turned to John and slipped his left hand into John’s right. “John, this is my late wife, Catherine. Catherine, this is John Watson. My John.”

“Hello,” John said softly. He turned to Sherlock and squeezed his hand. “Would you mind giving me a minute alone?”

Sherlock nodded and walked away, hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

John took a deep breath and sat down on the cold grass. “Hello,” he said again. “I’m John. I’m sure he’s probably told you a lot about me already, so I’ll skip all that. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to you. No one deserves that.

“And, I wanted to tell you that I love your husband, more than I love my own life. I just wanted you to know that. I will never leave him. I will love him until the end of my days. I promise you that I will always take care of him. I can never replace you in his heart, and I don’t want to. But I hope that one day, I can stand as your equal in his heart.”

John turned around at the soft sound of Sherlock’s footsteps next to him. Sherlock sank down to sit next to him. John closed his eyes. “You heard all of that, didn’t you?”

“I love you, John, even though I know I don’t always show it. I want you next to me for the rest of my days.” He leaned over and kissed John deeply.

“Thank you,” Sherlock whispered as they reluctantly broke apart.

They stood as one. Sherlock bent down and kissed Catherine’s headstone. “You can come visit her whenever you want,” Sherlock said. “I’m sure she would like that.”

“I will,” John said as he leaned up to kiss Sherlock’s cheek.

John brushed his fingers along the top of it before sliding his hand into Sherlock’s.

“Let’s go home,” Sherlock said, tugging on John’s hand as he led him from the cemetery.

*

Later, after they were home, Sherlock disappeared into his old room for a moment and returned with a small box in his hand. He placed the box on their kitchen table and stared at it for several minutes before he finally opened it and took out his wedding ring.

“John?”

“Hmm?” John looked up from reading the newspaper. His eyes widened slightly when he saw what Sherlock was holding. He stood and crossed to the kitchen to stand next to Sherlock, lightly brushing against his side as they both looked at the ring glinting in the overhead light.

“Why don’t you wear it?” John asked.

“Because I didn’t think I deserved to, after she died because of what I did.”

“But now?”

“Now, I think I could.” He slipped the ring onto his right ring finger. “And I think I’d like to wear yours, too, in the future.” He smiled shyly at John, who was gaping at him.

John swallowed, speechless. Unable to vocalise the “Yes!” that was stuck in his throat, he settled for kissing Sherlock deeply.

When they broke apart, Sherlock was grinning down at him. “I’ll assume that that means you’d like that, too?”

John could only nod, still overwhelmed.

“Good.”

Sherlock kissed John again and gently led him up to their bed, where they laid tangled up in each other, just breathing each other in. Just before he drifted off, Sherlock murmured, “Thank you,” into John’s hair.

John sighed softly, already asleep. Sherlock smiled and let himself sleep, finally at peace with himself.

 

\--Fin--


End file.
